Motherboard Not Detecting Video Card

[Bludude4]

So I was playing a video game on my computer the other day, and all of a sudden my screen went black, and I think the computer restarted immediately after. (I suspect, there's no real way for me to tell.) Anyway, I thought, "Okay, maybe it was a glitch.", and paid no attention to it, and waited for it to reboot. Then I realized that I was waiting longer than usual for it to restart. Then I realized, after restarting a few more times, that my graphics card wasn't outputting any video signal at all.

I then plugged in a video cable to the onboard graphics on my motherboard. The video was coming from there, all of a sudden! So I reseated the video card in the PCI-Express slot. Nothing.

I went into Device Manager on Windows (Using the onboard video) and looked up Display Adapters. The only thing that was under there was the onboard graphics.

My dad has a gaming PC as well, so I took his video card out, and put mine in. (By the way, mine is a 550 Ti and his is a 560 Ti, if that helps.) It was working fine in my dad's rig. So I know that my video card is not broken.

I went into my motherboard's BIOS to see what the onboard graphics were set to. There was no "on/off switch". There was only frame buffer, and the order it tried graphics in, I think. (The options were IGFX-PCI-[SomethingElse], in different orders.) So I switched it to the option where PCI was first, then tried rebooting. No video signal.

I am afraid that the PCI-Express slot on my motherboard is...damaged...or broken? Any suggestions as to what I can try to fix this problem? (The Video card is a KFA2 GTX 550 Ti (I know it works) and the motherboard is an Asus M5A78L-M LX PLUS, so it would cost about $50.00 to replace, maybe I can get a better one that might not produce this problem...)

Thank-you! -Bludude4

 

[Cats869]

Hmm, interesting.

What power supply do you have? It is also possible that the PSU may have had some issues depending on what PSU you have. You can try putting the GTX 560 Ti in your computer to make sure the motherboard is functioning fine but I don't suggest it, at least tell us what PSU you have first before I can tell you if it is okay to do that or not.

 

[Bludude4]

I'm using a 450 watt power supply, and it has powered my 550 Ti for half a year without a problem. I don't think it would be able to handle a 560 Ti, though, as it's pretty close to its limits with the current hardware. (3 hard drives and 5 case fans.)

 

[Cats869]

Either the PSU had a small issue or the motherboard it seems. I never heard of a case where the PCIe x16 lane would become damaged by a graphics card but then again, 75W of power is always flowing through it when the card is under load so I shouldn''t be surprised. So you do not have any other video cards you could possibly throw into this computer to test I guess?

 

[Bludude4]

The only other graphics cards that I have are the 560 Ti, which I COULD rip apart both computers and use my dad's power supply with my motherboard and the 560 Ti, but other than that, I have some EVGA AGP card, and a 9800 GX2 which I don't even know works. The 550 Ti DID work in my dad's system, though, and it was previously working in my system, so I think it's something other than the graphics card. :/